MAY 25, 2025
Vinegar kills weeds. – The Spruce / Jason Donnelly.
If you’re noticing unexpected weeds sprouting up around your yard and garden, you might not have any herbicide handy. It’s best to try to get rid of weeds as soon as you see them to prevent them from spreading, so grabbing a household option might be your best bet.
Vinegar is known to be a powerhouse for DIY cleaning solutions around the house—but can it also help you in your yard and garden too? We asked the pros.
Meet the Expert
Alexia Leeser is the home horticulture and master gardener coordinator at the University of Maryland Extension in Baltimore County.
Why Vinegar Works On Weeds
Yes, you can use vinegar as a DIY weed-killing solution, but there are some things to consider. Vinegar works on weeds because it burns or dries out the plant, making it difficult for the weeds to retain water. The higher the acetic acid in the vinegar, though, the more effective it will be.
When weeds can’t retain water, they eventually wither and die—but this isn’t a fool-proof method. Vinegar is most effective on young weeds with unestablished root systems, according to Alexia Lesser, home horticulture and master gardener coordinator at the University of Maryland Extension.
“While larger and perennial weeds may wilt and/or discolor after spraying vinegar, they will recover because their root systems will survive,” she says.
Higher summer temperatures can help vinegar be a more effective weed killer, but pulling out mature weeds entirely will be your best bet.
How to Use Vinegar on Weeds
Lesser does not recommend applying vinegar to your yard more than every two weeks. If you do plan on using vinegar on those pesky weeds, Lesser says to wait 24-48 hours after the last rain to be certain that your vinegar is the most effective.
To use vinegar as a weed killer, add vinegar to a spray bottle and spray directly onto the plants. Do this when there is no chance of rain, as the rain will wash away the vinegar, and the weeds will survive.
When spraying vinegar onto your weeds, make sure the spray nozzle is as close to the weed as possible to avoid causing damage to grass and other nearby plants.
What About My Other Plants?
Due to the acetic acid, vinegar may cause minor cosmetic damage to nearby plants (including grass) that come in contact with it, but if the plants have established root systems already, they’ll be fine.
4 Other Methods for Killing Weeds Naturally
If weeds are taking over your lawn and you’re not sold on using vinegar, there are other options you can use.
“I don’t recommend vinegar as a long-term weed management solution because of its lack of efficacy for large, established weeds and the fact that it only impacts those it comes into direct contact with,” Lesser shares.
Here are some other common, effective methods that you can use along with vinegar or on their own:
- Hand-pulling weeds: If you’re a fan of getting down and dirty, hand-pulling weeds is the easiest and most effective method for weed removal. Pulling weeds by hand (or with a tool) removes the entire plant, including the root, making it harder to grow back.
- Sprinkling salt: Similar to vinegar’s acetic properties, salt’s sodium content makes it an effective herbicide. Sprinkling salt over your weeds will make them dry up and wither away—it’s a perfect set-it-and-forget-it solution.
- Using baking soda: If you don’t have salt, baking soda has a high enough salt content that makes it an effective herbicide, so sprinkling it all over the weeds will make them wither away.
- Smothering them: If you have a lot of weeds clustered together in a small area and don’t have the time to hand-pull them, you can lay a black tarp over the area to smother them.
Courtesy/Source: Article originally posted on The Spruce
